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00:00This tiny island, less than one square mile, costs more than 4,000 lives.
00:25This is Tarawa, typical of some of the most concentrated fighting of the war as the Americans
00:29drive the Japanese back, island by island, across the Pacific.
01:29In February 1942, Japanese bombers attacked the Australian mainland.
01:48The raid temporarily knocked out the naval base of Darwin.
01:52With the Japanese advancing across New Guinea, some Australians thought this was the prelude
01:56to invasion.
01:57But the Japanese army and navy were unable to agree.
02:01Their invasion plans were shuffled.
02:07In fact, the Japanese found they were overextended.
02:10In the appalling conditions of the New Guinea jungle, the Australians, with growing American
02:14support, turned back the Japanese advance on the vital base of Port Moresby.
02:20Along the Kokoda Trail, the Allies counterattacked.
02:25Sickness and disease were obstacles as formidable as Japanese bullets.
02:43By the end of 1942, the threat to Australia had been removed.
02:47The stage was set for the long and bitter struggle to push the Japanese back to their
02:51homeland.
02:54The Allied offensive came under the separate command of two rivals, General Douglas MacArthur
03:00in the southwest Pacific and Admiral Chester Nimitz in the central Pacific.
03:06American strategy was to mount a two-pronged attack on an enemy whose conquests extended
03:10over thousands of square miles of land and ocean.
03:15MacArthur's task was to thrust upwards from the Solomons and New Guinea to the Philippines.
03:22The forces under Nimitz were to make a series of giant leaps from island to island.
03:27The Marshall Islands, the Marianas, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
03:32They would start in the Gilberts in November 1943 at Tarawa.
03:40Each one of you is much better than the Jap.
03:45You're better physically, you're better mentally, you have better weapons, you're going to have
03:50better support.
03:51So you're going to be able to lick him hands down when it comes to individual fighting.
03:57Let me repeat again what the General said, if you have to run any chances whatsoever
04:02to get a prisoner, then don't get him.
04:15The first objective of Admiral Nimitz's island-hopping armada's Tarawa Atoll had become a Japanese
04:21fortress from whose airstrip planes could strike at the US fleets.
04:26Tarawa had to be taken.
04:29This was the first time a sea-borne attack had been launched against a heavily defended
04:33atoll protected by a coral reef.
04:54No one in the initial assault force of 5,000 marines realised just how strong the defences
04:59of Tarawa were.
05:01They thought they would level the island and completely demolish everything, that there
05:05wouldn't be a living soul on the island.
05:11I remember him telling us, this is going to be the easiest invasion we ever had.
05:16He says, you only need two men, one with a rifle and one with a slate, one to shoot them,
05:25one to chalk them up.
05:26It's going to be real easy.
05:33I turned to the major who was standing next to me on the deck and said, some of our people
05:38aren't aiming very well today.
05:40He said, you don't think those are our shells, do you?
05:43I realised then for the first time that we're being shot at and there were indeed some Japanese
05:47on Tarawa.
05:53Everyone was confident that if you could kick hell out of the Japanese, the marines would
05:58have no problem with them if we could get our feet on the beach.
06:17You must remember that the island was only 800 or 900 yards wide and when you put 20,000
06:22men on an island like that, it's quite crowded.
06:33There were Japs in front of the lines, behind the lines, all over.
06:49We were told that perhaps that we could take this island within a very short time and it
06:54was quite evident within hours of our landing that this would not be so.
07:11Foxholes that had been covered up with the naval gunfire, the next morning within about
07:1620 yards of where I was, I watched the Japanese digging out.
07:20They were digging the sand out of the place so that they could see out.
07:33The battle raged for three days, with the Japanese defenders being gradually pinned
07:37back into one end of this tiny island.
08:07The Japanese commander had boasted that Tarawa could not be taken in 100 years.
08:31If you can imagine the effect of nearly 6,000 dead men on an island this small, and considering
08:41that it's one degree from the equator, the amount of heat you have there, you can imagine
08:46the smell that you get within a day or two from all this rotting flesh.
08:52It was sort of a sweet smell, sickly sweet, I described it.
09:00And I don't know anywhere in World War II where there was such a concentration of death.
09:11When it was all over, of 3,000 Japanese, only 17 surrendered.
09:18Americans lost over 1,000 dead and 2,000 wounded.
09:24Public opinion in the United States was shocked that such heavy losses had been incurred in
09:29so short a period of fighting.
09:35After Tarawa, American invasion forces headed for the Mariana Islands of Saipan, Tinian
09:41and Guam.
09:43The naval task force protecting the landings was positioned to the west of Saipan.
09:49Approaching from Okinawa in June 1944 was Japan's mobile fleet, looking for a naval
09:54success that would yet turn the war in their favour.
10:03Away from their radar, the Americans realised that they had been spotted by the Japanese.
10:19Every available American fighter was put into the air to meet wave after wave of Japanese
10:24carrier-borne planes.
10:45Many Japanese pilots were comparative novices with no battle experience.
11:07Their aircraft were poorly armoured.
11:11For the American fliers swooping down on their opponents, it was as easy as shooting
11:17turkeys.
11:39After the first encounter, all but one of the American planes returned.
12:09Fully armed and refuelled, the Americans were ready for the next Japanese move.
12:12There were two more onslaughts to be faced.
12:15However, the Americans had nearly 900 carrier planes, twice the number of the Japanese.
12:26The Mariana's turkey shoot lasted just eight hours.
12:30In one day, Japanese naval air power was virtually destroyed.
12:37The original force of 430 planes was reduced to about 100.
12:53American losses were comparatively light.
13:27At the end of the day, the Americans had won the air battle, but had yet to locate the
13:35Japanese fleet, now retiring.
13:42The following day, the Americans continued their search for the enemy.
13:53It was not until late afternoon that their aircraft sighted the mobile fleet over 200
14:13miles away, at the extreme limit of the range of the American bombers, that the order was
14:18given, attack.
14:42In the fading light, the principal objective of the American strike, the Japanese carrier
14:46force, was badly mauled.
15:02One carrier was sunk and two others damaged.
15:05This great naval battle, in which neither fleet actually fired on the other, ended with
15:10the Japanese reduced to only 35 aircraft retreating to their bases in Japan.
15:22The American planes now faced the problem of getting back to the carriers.
15:29The decision to attack had meant that they might easily run out of fuel on the journey
15:33home.
15:38This was to return by the fighters, which had been protecting the task force.
15:54Landing in the dusk was difficult enough, but later on the torpedo planes and bombers
16:18would have to find their carriers in pitch darkness.
16:22Some would never make it.
16:52Then it turned into probably the blackest night that I have ever seen in my life.
17:16And over the ocean, I guess we were at about 7,000 feet flying home.
17:21It was kind of our best altitude for fuel, and it was black as the ace of spades.
17:26And we could hear nothing, just ourselves, except the cries, or I won't say cry, but
17:31a very perfunctory call, I'm going to have to land in the water, I'm out of fuel.
17:37And this continued just constantly until all the torpedo planes that had survived the strike
17:42went into the water.
17:43And then I suppose about a hundred miles from the force, the dive bombers started to run
17:47out of fuel.
17:48They called out, whatever the call was, I don't remember the number, I'm going in,
17:55out of fuel.
17:56And then it became quite quiet until we got within range of the force, and then you could
18:04start to make out what was happening at the task force and what the recovery course would
18:09be.
18:09We had not yet seen it because the ships were running blacked out, which is a normal
18:13operating procedure, so it couldn't be detected from the air.
18:15But the admiral knew that we were going to have an awful problem getting aboard, and
18:19they were low on fuel, and we didn't have time to really look for the force.
18:22A decision was made, and the command was given out to the carriers to turn their lights on.
18:32Next day, the task force succeeded in rescuing the vast majority of the air crews who had
18:36been forced down in the ocean.
18:39Victory in this, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, meant that the Mariana landings could
18:43go ahead without interference from the Japanese navy.
18:59At a cost of 3,000 American dead, Saipan fell.
19:10Tinian was less heavily defended.
19:12Guam held out for three weeks.
19:28Moving west from the Marianas, an American amphibious force was switched by Nimitz to
19:33MacArthur's command as the two rival prongs began to come together.
19:37The objective was the Palau group of islands.
19:40These had to be taken before the invasion of the Philippines.
19:54On one island, Peleliu, the Americans again ran into fanatical resistance from a crack
19:59force of 10,000 Japanese troops.
20:10Instead of meeting the Americans on the beaches, the Japanese had withdrawn into a labyrinth
20:19of caves and tunnels.
21:10The Americans had to contest every yard against an enemy determined to fight to the death.
21:27In the bloody battle for Peleliu, four out of every 10 Americans taking part were killed
21:31or wounded.
21:40It was months before all the Japanese had been winkled out.
21:58There were no easy victories on these Pacific islands.
22:02Some of the dead marines could only be identified by their fingerprints.
22:10On October the 20th, 1944, MacArthur fulfilled his promise.
22:16He returned to the Philippines.
22:18The landings were virtually unopposed.
22:22The Japanese had retired inland to their main defences.
22:26But the invasion touched off the largest and most complex naval battle in history.
22:30The battle for Leyte Gulf was to last for four days.
22:34Four Japanese forces were involved.
22:37The Americans had two fleets, the 7th and the 3rd.
22:41The Japanese aim was to destroy the American invasion shipping in Leyte Gulf.
22:45After a series of confused engagements, hundreds of miles apart, the Imperial Japanese Navy
22:51suffered heavy losses.
22:53It ceased to be an effective fighting force.
22:57On land, torrential rain had delayed the progress of MacArthur's men
23:01fighting against a Japanese army numbering nearly 400,000.
23:07By February 1945, three months after the Leyte landings,
23:11the Americans were getting ready to attack.
23:13They were preparing to attack.
23:15They were preparing to attack.
23:17They were preparing to attack.
23:19They were preparing to attack.
23:21They were preparing to attack.
23:23They were preparing to attack.
23:26By the end of the Leyte landings,
23:28the Americans were closing in on the Philippines' capital, Manila.
23:42For the first time in the Pacific War,
23:44the Americans were fighting their way into a big city.
23:56The battle raged from street to street, house to house.
24:18Many civilians lost their lives.
24:20Some executed.
24:23Many civilians lost their lives.
24:25Some executed by the retreating Japanese.
24:28Thunderclaps
24:50MacArthur's second hour of triumph
24:53is returned to the Philippines' capital.
24:58Americans who had been taken prisoner during the Japanese invasion
25:02were released after three years in captivity.
25:28With the American capture of the Philippines,
25:30the supply routes carrying essential war materials for Japanese industry
25:33would be cut.
25:35The Japanese command knew
25:37that when they had lost the Philippines,
25:39they had lost the war.
25:48After liberation, revenge.
25:50The settling of personal scores against Filipinos
25:53accused of collaborating during the years of Japanese occupation
25:57now at last at an end.
26:28February, 1945.
26:30Iwo Jima, eight square miles of volcanic rock,
26:33only 600 miles from the coast of Japan,
26:36was the target for the next leap across the Central Pacific.
26:41From Iwo Jima,
26:43American bombers could raid Japanese cities almost at will.
26:48From the dominating heights of Mount Suribachi,
26:51the Japanese could see practically everything that moved on Iwo Jima.
26:55Once again, the main Japanese forces were inland, away from the beaches.
27:02For 76 days before the landing,
27:04the Americans had bombarded Iwo Jima from sea and air.
27:14The waste, the barrenness of the place,
27:18it was actually like a nightmare.
27:20It was the closest thing you could see to hell.
27:24If ever hell looked like anything, it must look like Iwo Jima.
27:33The minute you got in those boats, you were scared.
27:37You were scared until you hit the beach.
27:43You realize that you're going in to kill,
27:46and we were always taught that we had to kill or be killed.
27:49It was either us or the Japanese, one or the other.
27:52When you're faced with this situation,
27:55as a young man, I was only 19,
27:59it's confusing.
28:01You're built in the Marine Corps to take orders and obey orders,
28:05but at the same token, you're still a human being,
28:09and you're only 19 or 20.
28:11Most of us were only 18, 19, or 20 during those days.
28:22I think the public has the idea that Marines are supermen,
28:25but I don't think there was a Marine in the amphibious landing craft
28:29that wasn't afraid, including the officers.
28:44I was always taught to hate them in the Marine Corps,
28:47to detest them, and that they were animals,
28:51by the same token, we were taught
28:54that they would die for the Emperor,
28:57and we weren't taught to die for our President.
29:00And to fight or to come up against an individual
29:03who wants to die or who doesn't care about dying
29:06is a tough thing to combat in your mind.
29:09We wanted to live, we wanted to kill him, and we wanted to survive.
29:13You have to keep your head down
29:16because there's too much fire above you,
29:19and it's that constant wondering,
29:22is somebody going to drop a lucky one in there,
29:26and you're too far out to swim with all that gear on,
29:30and what are you going to get into when you get there?
29:34It's a hell of a place to be.
29:38And as you hit the island,
29:41and you saw the ash and nothing living,
29:44it was, if there's a chance
29:47that there's a chance that you can get up there,
29:50you have to go up there.
29:53And I think that's a good thing.
29:56I think it's a good thing to be a Marine,
29:59and to have a good life.
30:02And it's a good thing to be a Marine.
30:06It was, if there's ever been hell, this was it.
30:18When we hit the beach itself,
30:21actually there was a little incline,
30:24and everybody clung to the incline
30:27because the fire was that heavy.
30:30And everything that hit the beach
30:33exploded.
30:41I was young then.
30:44This was my 4th operation.
30:47I was 18 in my first operation.
30:50I was 16.
30:53They just lay there and waited for us,
30:56and rhythmically just kept on tattooing
30:59every band along the line.
31:03And we enjoyed it.
31:06The slaughter was fantastic.
31:09We just walked into a web,
31:12and there was no way out.
31:15You couldn't get off the beach.
31:18And getting into the beach was a depressing scene.
31:21It sort of knocked your morale down
31:24when you start to see your own people
31:27from your own team dead.
31:30And then you see a rise,
31:33this tremendous amount of bodies just lying there.
31:54We moved about,
31:58a few yards in,
32:01just as far as they, meaning the Japanese,
32:04decided for us to go.
32:09There was no way of getting off the island,
32:12not that first night.
32:15It was just too congested.
32:18There was nothing that could move off that island
32:21the first night.
32:28In the troops of Mount Suribachi,
32:31the Japanese commander had concentrated his artillery.
32:37The preliminary bombardment had again failed
32:40to knock out the Japanese strong points.
32:43They could only be taken one at a time
32:46by the men on the ground.
32:49It would take a lot longer to capture Iwo Jima
32:52than the five days allowed for by the American command.
32:58The entire vegetation was gone completely.
33:01And you awaken in the morning
33:04and you look out across this particular expanse
33:07of no man's land
33:10and it was bubbling and seething
33:13with steam coming out of the ground.
33:16In fact, we had to use cardboard from C-ration packs
33:19to put down in a foxhole
33:22so that your ass wouldn't burn up.
33:28If there is a hell, I'm living through it now.
33:31So I don't have to worry about going to hell
33:34any time in the future. I've been there.
33:49One of the guys came up to me.
33:52He was a man with a family.
33:55We were meeting him that particular day
33:58and I said, well, we're in a mortar outfit back here.
34:01Fairly well safe. No problems.
34:04Before the day was over, he and half of my other squad was dead.
34:10I think the worst part was you get callous
34:13to dead bodies and bloated bodies
34:16but you never get callous to your own friends in that way.
34:19And I think that perhaps was the most terrible thing of Iwo Jima.
34:23If you remembered all of the tragic things that happened,
34:26you would go crazy. You wouldn't be able to survive it.
34:29Oh, you always think you're going to make it.
34:32You're scared, but you still think you're going to make it.
34:53It was just one of the biggest messes
34:56I myself had ever seen.
34:59I don't know who the beach master was,
35:02but he probably had the roughest job
35:05of any man I've ever had to deal with.
35:08It was just one of the biggest messes
35:11I myself had ever seen.
35:14I don't know who the beach master was,
35:17but he probably had the roughest job
35:20of any man I've ever had to deal with.
35:30It may have looked confusing at the time,
35:33but the supply organization backing up the assault force
35:36was proof of the factor that made America's victory over Japan
35:39inevitable right from the day of Pearl Harbor,
35:42her overwhelming industrial strength.
35:50Only one thing seemed to permeate the men.
35:53Get that million-dollar wound and get off this damn place.
36:20Inland from the beaches,
36:23Iwo Jima became another battle of attrition.
36:27Inland from the beaches,
36:30Iwo Jima became another battle of attrition.
36:57Day after day, the Americans inched forward
37:00against Japanese who preferred death to surrender.
37:03Their leaders still hoped the Americans
37:06might tire of their losses and of the war.
37:09Oh, my Lord, in Iwo, it was hand-to-hand fighting.
37:12You didn't know who was even in the hole with you half of the time.
37:16As you went into the caves,
37:19we lost most of our people in this particular fashion.
37:22You went into the caves and you fought it out with a guy.
37:26One of you came out.
37:31I don't think anybody really realized
37:34that they were underground so deeply
37:37and it was so heavily defended, really.
37:56After three days fighting on Mount Suribachi,
37:59the Stars and Stripes flew on the summit.
38:02One of the boys started to howl, there goes the flag.
38:05And I don't care where you were on that island,
38:08you could see right up to Suribachi
38:11and the flag was raised and everybody started to howl
38:14because we figured, well, the island was secure,
38:17but it was far from secure.
38:20We had a long way to go yet,
38:23but it was nice to see the flag up there anyway.
38:33They always told you to take prisoners,
38:36but we had some bad experiences on Saipan taking prisoners.
38:39You take them and as soon as they get behind the lines,
38:42they drop grenades and you lose a few more people.
38:45You're a little bit leery about taking prisoners
38:48when they're fighting to the death and so are you.
38:53OK, you can keep up right now.
38:56Very few of them came out on their own.
38:59When they did, usually one in the front,
39:02he'd come out with his hands up
39:05and one behind him, he'd come out with a grenade.
39:13One of the West Virginia boys,
39:16he was sitting against a stone wall
39:19with his knees up under his helmet
39:23as we used to sit quite often.
39:26One of the enemy ran out onto the top of the stone wall
39:30and held a small explosive charge to his abdomen
39:35and a chunk of his torso,
39:39the lower torso, went spiraling into the air
39:43and came down on John's knees
39:46with the absolute posterior devoid of any clothes
39:49staring him right in the face.
39:52And he looked at that and he says,
39:55God, am I hit that bad?
39:58And that was the trigger that released
40:01the tensions of the previous night.
40:04And there were several of us
40:07that were perfectly useless for as much as an hour.
40:11We were just laying on the ground in convulsions.
40:19Of the 21,000 Japanese troops
40:22on Iwo Jima when the attack began,
40:26only 200 were taken alive.
40:34I was on the island a total of 6 days
40:38and it seemed like 6,000 years.
40:43Iwo Jima's airfields were functioning
40:47even before the island was taken
40:51thanks to the American construction battalions, the CBs.
40:55They played a key role here
40:58and indeed in the whole Pacific War.
41:02Now the time had come to penetrate
41:05the inner ring of Japan's defences.
41:09350 miles from the mainland was the last great barrier
41:12between the Allies and the planned invasion of Imperial Japan.
41:15The Japanese island of Okinawa.
41:18On April 1st, 1945, the Americans attacked.
41:45Japan's young suicide pilots, the Kamikazes,
41:48swarmed to the defence of Okinawa.
41:55Many flew their fatal missions in obsolete aircraft.
41:59The Japanese were the only ones
42:02who survived the bombing of Okinawa.
42:06They were the only ones
42:09who survived the bombing of Okinawa.
42:13They were the only ones
42:16who survived the bombing of Okinawa.
42:35So many things were happening so quickly
42:38that it was a little bit like a big boxer in a ring
42:42when he's being hit to the chin and to the side of the face
42:45and bodies and everywhere else
42:48because we were catching it from so many different angles.
42:56In a regular attack, it's a sporting chance you've got.
42:59With regular bombs and regular bullets,
43:02you think you've got a very good chance,
43:05but war is not so much of a sport
43:08when you're fighting human bombs.
43:12Over 2,000 Kamikaze pilots met their deaths,
43:15but they destroyed 30 U.S. warships
43:18and damaged 200 more.
43:32You were praying that you could survive
43:35whatever kind of explosion would come about.
43:38Your whole life flashed in front of you
43:41very quickly because you didn't know
43:44whether it'd be seconds or minutes
43:47until your life would be snuffed out.
43:50American casualties were so severe
43:53that at one point it seemed
43:56the invasion of Okinawa might be stopped in its tracks.
43:59The gunners can't turn it off.
44:02Once they gear themselves up to fight man against man bomb,
44:05even though the plane is down,
44:09they can't turn it off.
44:31One man, he was in a 40-mm mount,
44:34and he had been fighting against
44:37quite a number of planes that had come in,
44:40but we had been hit in his area also two or three times.
44:43All of a sudden, with nobody understanding why,
44:46he just yelled out,
44:49it's hot today and jumped over the side.
44:52That's the last we ever saw of him.
44:55Had he stayed aboard, he might have survived,
44:58but we couldn't find his body or anything after that.
45:01It was an unusual type of reaction.
45:05That was the end of his fighting.
45:08But every man, I believe, has a breaking point,
45:11and the kamikaze, I would estimate,
45:14probably tests that breaking point
45:17more than any other form of combat.
45:24The initial landings on Okinawa had been unopposed,
45:27but as the Americans pushed inland,
45:30they came up against a Japanese army of 100,000 troops
45:33in a fortified central area.
45:53The steep hills and narrow ravines of Okinawa
45:56formed a natural citadel for the Japanese defenders.
46:00Outnumbered by two to one,
46:03they made the Americans pay in blood
46:06for every foot of Japanese soil.
46:30But Japan herself closed to surrender.
46:33Not every Japanese soldier wanted to fight on to the end.
46:36But Japan herself closed to surrender.
46:39Not every Japanese soldier wanted to fight on to the end.
47:06The end
47:09The end
47:12The end
47:15The end
47:18The end
47:21The end
47:24The end
47:27The end
47:30The end
47:34The end
47:37The end
47:40The end
47:43The end
47:46The end
47:49The end
47:52The end
47:55The end
47:58The end
48:02The end
48:05The end
48:08The civilians of Okinawa suffered appalling losses.
48:35Four thousand were killed, many thousands more injured.
48:39Once they found out that we weren't going to do the things that they had always heard,
48:45well, they could understand, hey, this is just another human being,
48:48and possibly they felt the same as we did, that we weren't there because we wanted to be there.
48:54We were told that this is what we had to do.
48:59To many Americans, at the end of their great advance across the Pacific,
49:03it now seemed that the animals, the faceless fanatics eager to die for their emperor,
49:10were human beings like themselves.
49:13They showed kindness to their own people too, which we didn't really think.
49:17We thought, well, life was cheap to them, but that's not true.
49:22They showed a lot of kindness to their own wounded,
49:26and would tote them on their back, and two or three would carry them,
49:31although they were weak their self, you know, so they were people just like us.